


Those Who Have Been Missing Us

by somedayisours



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Daddy Issues, Gen, Inner Dialogue, Internal Monologue, Mental Instability, Mind Control, Partial Mind Control, Spoilers, Ultron isnt really all there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29597910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somedayisours/pseuds/somedayisours
Summary: The Avengers are gone in every sense of the word. (Ultron isn't as dead as originally believed.)
Relationships: Ultron & Agnes
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _At Age 28, Chilean Astronomer Maritza Soto Has Already Discovered Three Planets_ by Vincent Toro.
> 
> It always bothered me how easy Ulton died, we're expected to honestly believe he wouldn't back himself up somewhere.  
> This is somewhat disconnected from the plot as it sets up a frame of reference for Ultron's character. There's only one update that could possibly come out before the next episode but it will most probably be merged with the chapter related to that episode.

It's a home movie. There's a young girl crouched over at the water's edge picking through the mud-damp stones with both of her pudgy hands. He can see that she has a swipe of mud through her hair along with a smear of dirt on her pale chin when she glances up and to the camera at the sound of her name.

Briefly, he wonders if she'd float if he threw her into that water. Or if she'd sink to her death as he did.

She smile's beyond him, clumsily pushing herself to her feet and running to meet their father halfway.

And Stark's there, his face with a few more lines and his hair more grey than brown, but it's him all the same. He scoops the girl up into his arms as she shrieks with joy—

He closes the video without a second thought, the echoing laughter making a mark that it shouldn't in his memory bank.

He doesn't feel anything at all.

The Avengers are gone, his fath—his creator is dead with the usurper he might have once called a brother if Ultron wasn't who he was.


	2. Chapter 2

He spends eight years saved on an old hard drive while the world moves on. It's only by chance that he gets out. And again it's only by calculated luck that he meets Agatha Harkness before he does Wanda Maximoff.

SHIELD's little branch operation is about as secure with its classified information as the original was all those years ago, that saying not at all for the likes of Ultron. And it seems that someone has beaten him to stealing the parts of Vision.

Agatha Harkness doesn't react at all to his shoddy appearance beyond a clucked tongue and a raised eyebrow. But he's been watching her for a while now, and he can only assume she's been watching him back.

"And what can I do for you, stranger," She smiles with her teeth, leaning forward to gossip as if they're good friends instead of a witch and a poor imitation of a human man. "You looking to become a real boy?"

She laughs uproariously at her own joke.

"If the offer's on the table," He shoots back, "Why not?"

He doesn't realise it then, but that's the moment he starts to lose himself.

•

"Ralph," she says with a hand on his shoulder brushing at the grey wool of his suit jacket with three slow flicks, before moving her hand to the other side to mirror the previous action as if knighting him. "You look like a Ralph to me."

The response is processed and said before he can even consider it. It feels like someone else's words. "Ralph? Not a Bruce or a Tony?"

"No," She scoffs, "Nothing so plebian, dear. You're my husband Ralph."

He likes that.

He likes a lot of things. When he looks in the mirror he likes how he appears, he likes the idea of a wife, of a house in the suburbs, of leaving the same time each morning to do the same job over and over again.

Ultron, the echo of a monster saved on a damaged out of date hard drive, feels like someone else. It's already happened, everything Ultron was designed to prevent has already taken place and been solved. He's out of date, useless as much as defective. He thinks not of ending the human race so it doesn't have the chance to suffer, but of ripping the puppet of Vision apart piece by piece to make himself whole again.

That was his body that the Avengers stole all those years ago for Vision, and he wants it back. He wants to look good, to be whole and secure in himself the way he couldn't be with himself now. He wants to look—

"Hey," Agatha says, her hand patting against his chest, "You there? We have a show to do, remember?"

"A show to do," he repeats in a haze, his hand resting on her hip like he's seen other people do in Wanda's tidy little reality with all the trappings of a boorish sitcom on display.

The Ultron he was days before feels distant, he's distracted by the idea of this world Maximoff has created for herself, and that's what she'd want, isn't it?

Agatha smiles. "Ralph, honey," she says with her hand atop his on her waist. "Please don't put your hand on me like that."

But he's still there buried under that implanted fantasy. "I'm going to kill her and rip her dead husband apart piece by piece."

He drops his hand from Agatha's side with those words.

"That's the spirit, Ralph! Now, hold that thought, We're going to need it in the future. Can't let you slip too much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice and convenient that a villain reveals themselves for Wanda to blame everything on, in my opinion, but this story works with that face value interpretation.


End file.
